Recovery
by justme6565
Summary: After losing almost everything, including his bending, Tenzin is able to see little purpose in his existence. A certain young Avatar helps him to find meaning again. In-Progress. Non-Romantic Korra/Tenzin. Rated T for safety.


"Aang," Korra said in a hoarse voice, hardly able to look her predecessor in the eye. "I'm sorry. I should've-"

"It wasn't your fault." He looked...numb, if a spirit could appear numb. "You were in the Avatar State. It was the responsibility of the entire Avatar lineage-my responsibility-to help you."

"But I should've gotten there sooner."

The spirit of Aang was silent for a moment. Because he knew it was true, thought Korra.

"You saved Tenzin, didn't you?" asked Aang, in a failed attempt to sound encouraging.

"Hardly." He might as well have not survived. Without his bending or his family, Korra didn't know if her mentor would have any will to live. Had their positions been reversed, she knew she certainly wouldn't, and given the apparent scope of his injuries according to the Water Medic who'd examined him, it certainly looked as though Tenzin would need a will to survive. Korra continued, "If the Avatars can't save those we love, why do we exist?"

Aang took a moment to sadly ponder this, but before he could answer, Tenzin stirred in his sleep next to where his father sat with Korra, and the former Avatar turned to look at his son. "He's waking. Korra, I'm talking to you now not as your guardian but as a father. I must go, but I beg of you, look after him for me. Please."

Korra didn't answer-how could she? This entire ordeal was her fault anyway. Though the entire Spirit World knew that Tenzin deserved it, though it was explicitly her duty-not only as the Avatar, not only as his pupil and near-daughter, but also, and perhaps most importantly, as the cause of his suffering—to look after him in this state, how could she, when it had always been Tenzin who protected her?

She watched as Aang stood, paced over to his son, and gently planted a kiss on his forehead that he'd never be able to see. It seemed to rouse him, and Korra hurried to his side just as he awoke.

Tenzin's eyelids fluttered open, and after a brief moment of disorientation, his pupils constricted with the residual fear of whatever it was upon which they last gazed. (Korra's bet was on Amon with his hand reaching for the Airbender's forehead, right in the center of his arrow tattoo...or perhaps they constricted not from a frightening sight, but the feeling of the bending being removed from his body—did such a trauma have a sensual feeling? Or perhaps the fear was not residual at all, but was a constant Tenzin's eyes, like the rest of his being, had come to expect every time they opened over the past month.)

For an instant, the man looked as though he was about to cry out, but then relaxed as he evidently recognized his pupil. "Korra." His voice was quiet, meek—not at all like the strong, even when gentle, tone that the Avatar remembered.

"Yes, Sifu Tenzin." Why did she speak in such a manner of respect? She had always respected her Airbending master absolutely, but it was uncharacteristic of her to express such feelings outwardly. It was not who she was. So why now? Was it premature recompense for what she would inevitably have to tell Tenzin, and soon? "You're home, on Air Temple Island. Safe."

"I…Amon," murmured Tenzin, seemingly in an attempt to remember what had happened to him. "Amon took my…" He shuddered involuntarily, and after a moment, sighed a shaky sigh. "I have failed you."

The girl was shocked to hear the tone of pain in her mentor's voice. _And he doesn't even know the worst of it, yet, _she thought.

But he hadn't failed. If anything, _she_ had. "What are you talking about? You haven't failed me!"

"No Master remains to teach you Airbending. You can now never fulfill your destiny."

"That's not true!" Korra, though she believed his words to a certain extent, would not allow Tenzin to blame himself—it _wasn't_ his fault! "We'll…we'll figure something out."

But she could see his mind was still working, still attempting to rectify what it perceived as its own misdoing. "Perhaps…perhaps Jinora could continue your training. Granted, she is young, and not strictly speaking a Master, but she is exceedingly skilled and understands the spiritual—"

"Tenzin." She couldn't bear to let him continue. And yet, how much she wished she didn't have to tell him! Briefly, Korra toyed with allowing the White Lotus to confess what had happened, but Aang's words—_Look after him for me. Please_—dismissed that idea. Plus, she decided, it was her fault. Her responsibility to convey it to him. "Jinora is…I…I couldn't save her…Or Ikki…Or Meelo." Her voice cracked, and she felt burning tears leak out of her eyes. "I'm so so sorry, Tenzin!"

Her mentor's eyes widened in despaired shock, and through shaky breaths he whispered, "Pema?"

Korra shook her head and sobbed. "I'm…sorry!" Tears ran down her cheeks and there was nothing she could hope to do to staunch them—nor did she attempt it. Instead, she sank into a bow facing Tenzin's recumbent body, hoping it expressed a fraction of the magnitude of her regret.

Had she been in the man's position, Korra thought she would have wailed, and when her voice ran raw from that, she'd have wept until there was not a single drop of water remaining in her body. But Tenzin didn't react that way. He simply...breathed. A deep breath—not quite a sigh—as though he were trying to purge himself of the deep-seated sadness that was surly racking his insides. But it seemed that one such breath was not enough, and Tenzin took another, deeper one. Still, ineffective. Another. Breath after breath escaped Tenzin's lungs, each one deeper than the last, somehow more frantic, and the time between them likewise shortened, until Korra looked up, afraid Tenzin would hyperventilate.

Then, suddenly, not-sighs turned to sobs. Tenzin's entire being trembled with them, and salt-water swelled in the corners of his eyes. Korra had never seen him cry, and the sight only heightened her sense of shame for allowing this to happen, putting the man she respected beyond all others through this torment.

The man groaned, involuntarily. The shaking of his body, surly, only aggregated the physical pain of a month's worth of injuries at the hands of the Equalists. Other than Amon's bending trick, Korra didn't know what they did to him over the course of his internment, and she didn't want to. Soon, she knew, she would find out, regardless, and all that mattered at the moment was that Tenzin was currently in pain: both mentally and physically. And Korra wanted to…to…do _something_. But what could she possibly do—especially when it was her fault? So, resigned and _helpless_ (Spirits, did she hate the helplessness), all the _mighty_ Avatar did was sit and weep.

After what seemed like hours, Tenzin regained a certain, if shaky, power of speech. "What happened to them?"

Korra gazed at him, knocked off guard. _What happened?_ Didn't he know? After all it had happened to him as well…But no, she realized, he wouldn't, would he? The Equalists had taken _him_ after a Council meeting—_he_ wasn't on the Island when they'd come to take the others, and based on the structure of the compound she'd stormed the previous Korra realized that Tenzin wouldn't have seen them; they all would have been detained in separate quarters.

"They were taken," she finally said, choosing her words carefully, and still trying to surpass sobs. "By the Equalists. The same day that you were." It didn't escape her that her mentor inhaled sharply, almost in a panicked state.

As if to excuse herself (not that it was much of an excuse, she knew) Korra said: "I wasn't here! I was…out with Mako and Bolin." She felt horribly guilty saying it, as if she'd been neglecting her duty—because she had been. If she hadn't been so preoccupied with mere socializing, perhaps she'd have been able to protect Tenzin's family. No, she _would_ have been able to protect them.

"They," Tenzin paused. "…took…Jiko as well." He didn't phrase it as a question, unwilling, Korra supposed, to raise his hopes even slightly that his now-month-and-a-day-old son would be alive.

"No!" Korra exclaimed too eagerly. In all the devastation of searching for and then losing the rest of her surrogate family, she'd forgotten about Pema's newborn. "The The White Lotus managed to get him out of the city and brought him to Katara in the South Pole. He's safe!" She was glad to be able to give him this one good tiding, however small. "The Equalists didn't know about him, I guess."

Tenzin sighed. "Thank the Spirits." Like the spirit of his father, Korra thought, her mentor sounded numb. She would too, she supposed, if she'd lost an eighth of what he had. The man continued: "There is still an Airbender left in existence."

That single sentence sent a shiver through the Avatar's entire being. Right. Had Jiko not been born and saved, Airbenders would have been extinct. And how, then, would her successor have learned Airbending? What would have happened three generations from now, when the Avatar was supposed to be an Airbender? Would the cycle have been broken, the Avatar cease to exist?

But gazing at Tenzin, Korra realized it wasn't simply about the Avatar cycle. His father, Aang, had been the last Airbender, the end, it had seemed, of a culture of a people…until Tenzin had been born. The young Airbender had absorbed that legacy, knowing it was his duty to continue it, pass it on to his children in any way he could. Tenzin, in his own mind, had almost failed not only her, but his father and the entire Airbending race, as well.

But what if there was no one to teach him the art of the Airbenders? No, there would be, as long as she was alive. She was the Avatar.

"Jiko will learn Airbending," said Korra. "I'll finish my training, somehow. And when he's old enough, I'll teach him."

She owed that much to Tenzin.


End file.
